After hints from producers and with the fate of beloved Barb still up in the air, Stranger Things has officially been picked up for a second season by Netflix. The announcement, which was made Wednesday morning, highlighted the return of its creators, the Duffer brothers, as executive producers and showrunners, and noted that for Stranger Things 2 (as it’s been dubbed), nine episodes are currently slated for production.
Despite the delayed response from Netflix—and the fact that the streaming service does not release regular ratings information—Stranger Things is considered one of its most popular series, and so this renewal was a matter of when, not if. Since its July 15 debut, the series, an homage to classic figures ranging from Steven Spielberg to John Carpenter, has inspired critical praise and several close reads.
In regards to plans for the second season, expect a return to the same characters, location, and time period. “I don’t think we ever thought anthology,” Ross Duffer told Entertainment Weekly after news of the renewal broke. “I think we talked like a larger time jump where the kids are older now and it’s a different decade … but for us, there’s still more story here [in the 1980s], there’s still things that are unresolved.” The Duffer brothers also cited director James Cameron as a major influence on the upcoming season, which will be constructed as a “blockbuster sequel.”
“I think one of the reasons [Cameron’s] sequels are as successful as they are is he makes them feel very different without losing what we loved about the original,” Matt Duffer said. “So I think we kinda looked to him and what he does and tried to capture a little bit of the magic of his work.”
